On the day I was to be formally named empress, my son Rongzhou objected in front of everyone:
“She is nothing but a lowborn imposter who switched a cat for the crown prince. She is unworthy of becoming empress. Qiuyue is my birth mother.”
Qiuyue, the personal maid who had served me for half my life, looked on the verge of tears:
“Not only am I the crown prince's birth mother, I'm also the true daughter of the marquis's household!”
The emperor had been frail from birth. Now past forty, he had only one child, the prince Rongzhou whom I had borne. That was why my son's status had brought me honor.
When even my father denied my identity, the emperor flew into a rage.
He had me imprisoned in a dungeon for the crime of deceiving the throne, where I was left among rats and insects.
As the son I had raised for fifteen years strangled me to death with a white silk cord,
I saw Qiuyue smile triumphantly at me through the iron bars:
“In our next life, I'll be the mistress and you'll be the maid.”
To my dying day, I couldn't understand it. Even if I wasn't the marquis's daughter, how could the ten months I spent pregnant with him be a lie?
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the eve of my son's appointment as crown prince.
